The Fiber to the Premises Install Process

SkinnyGuy writes "Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) or Fiber-based broadband is still in a very few areas, but PCMag's Lance Ulanoff has it and he seems to really, really like all 15MBPS of it. There's also an extensive slideshow on the whole installation process." From the article: "The power out is connected to the box, and the fiber ends in the box and comes out as Cat 5e, which runs back through the hole all the way to a new D-Link router. That's right: In addition to the box on the outside and the UPS inside, Verizon also gave me a new wireless G router, which includes four wired ports. This is a lot of free equipment (though I might incur some charges if I were to quit FiOS before the year had gone by). All this--not including the through-the-tree cable run--took another 2 hours or so."

Competing technologies marching on as well.

[SeaFox]

Fiber-based broadband is still in a very few areas, but PCMag's Lance Ulanoff has it and he seems to really, really like all 15MBPS of it.

Gee, I'm strangely not that impressed. I can get 10Mbps cable modem service right now ($44.95/mo), and I'm in Kansas. I just checked AT&T/SBC's site and it looks like their top of the line service in my area is only 3-6mbps.

Only 15MBPS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in France, ADSL2+ gets us 20MBps (for almost everyone), and Optic Fiber gives some lucky Parisians (not all Paris, though) 100 Mbps. VoIP and IPTV are bundled with both. It feels like a sweet revenge, given the fees we used to pay 10 years ago, compared to the US. (ADSL2+/TV/VOIP is 15 to 30 euros per month, unlimited and comes with the equipment [tv decoder, adsl modem, wifi spot] freely. Tons of sweet features such as static IP address and personalized reverse DNS and other customizable stuff like some DSLAM configuration directives [interleave & such]).

American ISPs are cheap... well, expensive, but cheap :). Well, let's just say they surrendered to ours ;). just kidding.

Verizon's plan for world domination with FiOS

[caryw]

What they DON'T tell you is that they completely cut the existing copper pair to your house, insuring that you can never "downgrade" to a competitors DSL service if you hate them as an ISP or from ever changing your local phone carrier to any other CLEC [wikipedia.org].

CNET article on it [com.com]
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From Northern Virginia? Visit Fairfax Underground [fairfaxunderground.com]! (Just added: Fairfax County wiki, need submissions)

Re:Competing technologies marching on as well.

[Professor_UNIX]

15MBps = 120mbps, about 12 times faster than your 10mbps connection, and about 20 times faster than AT&T's 6mbps service. ;-)

Did you bother to RTA? The author transferred 1700 MB in 12 minutes which is roughly 2.36 MB/sec or about 18 Mb/s. Still pretty damn good compared to my 6Mbps/768Kbps ADSL service of which I realistically see 4 Mbps down and 600 Kbps up. What I want to see is an ISP with a clue start offering high speed connectivity. If I see another god damn cable provider or telco offer some absurdly high download speed with an upload speed less than 10% of the download speed and then have the nerve to give out dynamic IPs and block inbound ports I'm going to puke. Other than widespread piracy of copyrighted material there is absolutely no purpose to such lopsided connectivity (Yes, I'm sure there are those of you out there downloading Fedora DVDs every day.. riiiiight).

What I want is what you can get at most dedicated server providers: a 10 Mbps full duplex port in and out with a 1500 GB monthly bandwidth cap, no blocked ports, and a /29 subnet allocation. If they can offer that for $85-$150 a month including a server rental then surely a telco or cable provider can provide that level of bandwidth too. Give the Internet back to the people with affordable bandwidth and symmetric connectivity.

And behind the scenes, the real dangers

[postbigbang]

First, note that this isn't a symmetrical implementation. The Verizon network uses a PON scheme that can't really do symmetrical, and so, please download more than you upload. Secondly, they also have great difficulties with VLANs, and IPV6-- try it to see (not that IPV6 is worth a crap).

Let's see if it's future proof.... can they update their hardware to accommodate multiple concurrent IPTV QoS-based streams at HD raster/frame/color levels? No. Are they going to guarantee your network applications-- no matter who provides them-- won't be port blocked or attenuated by service type/port? No. This is called 'net-neutrality' and Verizon isn't net-neutral (just their services of course).

Can you join an MPLS network, even though Verizon supports their own internally? Nope. Can you join theirs? Nope-- not today anyway and no date in sight.

Can you run Skype and Vonage, or are they blocked? Can you run mulitple QoS- VoIP streams without raising eyebrows? Nope.

Can you get them to do an SLA? Nope.

Can you currently up-and-download stuff amazingly fast? You bet.

And no- I do not work for any carrier or affiliate of any kind. Instead, I've been following FTTX for 20 years.

thoughts on ONT bandwidth, etc.

[CaptainPhoton]

I am wondering what the maximum service offering from Verizon is. I get the sense from the article that the AFC ONT is underutilized. It shows the 4 POTS lines are connected but the author says "we don't need them all". The video port is not connected, and it looks like the connector has a cover installed (also the video LED is not on) so this is not being used.

Does anyone know the speed of the PON interface and whose OLT that Verizon is using? I'd be curious how much bandwidth from the optics the end user is actually getting to use. The typical value for upstream is 155 Mbps, so I'm guessing this guy is getting less than 10% usage of the optical interface (15 Mbps / 155 Mbps = .097).

Re:Looks good

[thinbits]

I got the Verizon service last month at home and it absolutely rocks. Of course, the 15Mb download speed exceeds the the bandwidth of many smaller sites, so those don't go any faster. The install took about 2 hours and the installation was top notch. They ran Cat-5e to the other side of my house where I have all of the networking gear in a closet. The installers were quite professional and knew their stuff.
Pricing is something like $32/mo for 5Mb, $39/mo for 15Mb, and $170/mo for 30Mb. The installers mentioned Verizon was bumping the 15Mb service to 20Mb in some areas with no cost change to stay competitive.
My office is on a large fiber ring in downtown Portland, Or and has an uncapped (due to a problem at our ISP) OC-48 connection. I can pull files at a solid 15Mb/s and ping times are exceedingly low (~30ms). Working from home is much more pleasant now. :-)

Are we supposed to be impressed with 15Mbit fiber?

[stric]

For instance, turn the clock back 5 years and the bandwidth up by 6.7x and you get the old slashdot article http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/08/215523 8 [slashdot.org] which was about some people in the town I live in..

Re:Looks good

[--sc0rch--]

I've heard from other Verizon FIOS users that the D-Link router provided by verizon runs a special "-V" version of firmware that is not supported directly by D-Link. Can anyone confirm this? Does anyone know what the different are (assuming it is true)? Has anyone tried to replace the D-Link with something else or is there a requirement to use it?

Re:Availability

[thc69]

I think they're rolling it out first in rural areas where DSL is costing them a lot to run. They've got some sort of repeaters that allow them to run DSL way longer distances than normal. I'd guess that the reduced cost spread between DSL and fiber makes them want to offer fiber to customers who would otherwise buy cheap DSL plans.

My parents just bought a house in Exeter, RI, which is a tiny rural town. It's so small that it only has one police officer; when his shift is over, the state cops have jurisdiction. Approximately 6,000 residents. It's also one of a few towns where Verizon is offering fiber first in the state. I've seen them installing the cables on the poles in nearby areas, too.

My parents have fiber. Fiber is stapled to the side of the house. There's a box into which fiber goes, and the other side of the box is an ethernet jack. Yes, they even supplied a wireless router.

I was there when it was installed. It's really cool...they splice a pre-terminated end onto the fiber using a cool little machine that has an LCD showing the automated welding process in real time. The fiber has multiple layers of insulation, and the actual fiber is even thinner than I thought; it's barely visible.

Meanwhile, in my rural area of Glocester, about 25 miles north of their place, and a few miles closer to Providence, I can't get DSL or Fiber. It's cable or nothing here. Meh.